Join the swinging world of music. Wouldn’t you like to be really popular at parties - playing the music everybody wants to hear? Picture the thrill of leading your friends in a wild hoot-and-holler folk-sing! Now you can play the piano, accordion, guitar or any instrument you want! Be like dozens of kids your age and make it big overnight! If you like music, it’s a good sign that you may have a secret talent waiting to be discovered. Only a few pennies a day for each lesson and you too can become a star!

Swinging beach parties, rocking jam sessions, they’re all waiting for you in this exciting new home study course meant for active people who want to play fast. Reap yourself some happiness and astonish your friends playing your favorite instrument. Start your own three-piece band and play night-clubs around town. Just imagine your friend Geraldine on her trombone, your buddy Haywood with his mandolin and you on your very own accordion, rocking the night away! Your friends and family will be amazed at your talent and all the extra money you make. So, what do you like? Vio-ma-lin? Tuba-ma-ba? Oboe-mo-boe? Saxo-ma-phone?

When is the last time you went to a hootenanny or shindy? What are you waiting for? Be a big music star today!

Finding yourself less than obese? Well here’s a product guaranteed to get children and adults fat as pigs. Over one and a half million bottles of Groves Tasteless Chill Tonic sold! I don’t know what it is, but it might just be semisolid pig renderings. I know this ad is from the 18th century, but doesn’t this little piggy remind you of Bobby Hill from the TV show King of the Hill? It also reminds me of a picture I took of Jermaine Rogers - Life-Sized Squire vinyl toy, at the San Diego Comic-Con last year.

Look What’s Happening To The Handsome Muscular Men On Muscle Beach, CA!

Does your body look muscle starved? Not attracting the throngs of puffy pantied ladies you deserve? Then become this new breed of bobcat! Turn on the dames at the beach with mountains of muscles that you both can fixate on for hours. The myriad of muscles that you can achieve with the 007 Twister are only for real men, so no puny types need apply. Super muscles in just mere moments a day, why wait?

Let’s do the twist! Be like Sven Joe Weider here and bring out your inner He-Man!

Digi Comp I is a miracle of the modern space age. It’s a mechanical equivalent of an electronic digital computer and was one of the first binary computers. It was made of plastic, solved logic problems and for $4.98 was the closest thing to a computer you’d get as a kid in the 60’s. You’d have to assemble it yourself and then it was the smartest toy that you owned. It was sold as an educational toy that was fun at parties - if you liked to throw nerd parties and get beaten up.

I’m not sure exactly what made it “electronic”, as it didn’t take batteries or need to be plugged in. Just be careful about getting toys that are smarter and more fun at parties than yourself. All you need to do is slap on a plunger and you’ve got the start of a Dalek. Then it’s all about them and EX-TER-MI-NATE!

Bow down to your “electronic” superior - Digi Comp I.

Continuing the Stan Lee theme, here’s a classic Marvel comic book ad from the 60’s.

If the magnificent Marvel t-shirts don’t get your attention, then the macho Marvel sweatshirts will. These classic heroes t-shirts sold for under two bucks and you could choose from the Hulk, the Thing, Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Avengers or Captain Marvel. Or you could grab a sweatshirt with the Hulk or the Thing on it, if you wanted to emerge eloquent. (I wonder why the shirt collars appear accentuated. Perhaps that’s how they wore them back then.)

There’s also an option at the bottom of the ad to join the Merry Marvel Marching Society for a dollar. You’d get some super stickers, rocking recordings, a nutty new notepad, a magniloquent mini-book, a mind-snapping Marvel pencil, a majestic MMMs certificate and your very own munificent membership card too. (Stan Lee’s mastery of vocabulary and alliteration is super-human.)

Feast you baby blues on the marvelously, monstrous version of this classic ad.

With fondness for the classics, this 1980’s video game reminds me of the old movie Keystone Cops. This one or two player, fast-action, chase game had you running your thief around a maze, picking up coins and other treasures. The billy-club swinging cops chased you around, but you could temporarily detain them by locking the gates behind you. The longer you can elude them, the more your treasures are worth.

I like the way in this ad they made the cops’ shadow 8-bit looking, against the wall. In the olden days, advertisers made the artwork for these game ads look way better then the graphics in the real game. Doesn’t the crook in this ad remind you of the Batman supervillain, (the Burgess Meredith version of) the Penguin? I can almost hear his signature squawking laughter as he runs from the cop. Wah wah wah!

For the criminally insane (larger) version of this classic ad, click here.

It’s the 48″ “Talking” Monster from Outer Space and it’s full of shivers and delight! (If he looks anything like the picture, he looks more like Bigfoot.) Just imagine the amazement and shock of your friends when they hear him “talk”. (Your friends will be shocked that you spent a whole buck on this thing.) This is a lovable monster for you to command. (It’s your lovable, latex, inflatable buddy!) To make him “talk”, just use the special design instrument. (A “blowhorn” perhaps?) He bounces on his feet … wobbling, teetering, bending in every direction. (He won’t stand up on his own.)

It’s all the quotes around the word “talk(ing)”, which scares me! I do like the sketch of the monster though. Be scared silly with the Monster sized one here.

It’s the Testone Radium Energizer and Suspensory and it contains 20 micrograms of refined and measured Radium. Nothing put a spring in your step like radiating your groin. Besides it’s guaranteed, what could go wrong?

For that sagging, dragging weight that pulls you down and saps your energy - and for storing up and husbanding strength in that seat of male activity - that ??? - this marvelous appliance has no equal.

So if you’ve gone commando one too many times or time has been unkind to you, consider this miracle of modern technologies. I can just imagine “it” gigantic, irradiated and glowing green or having it shoot a fire ray while destroying Tokyo. Take that Mothra!

(Sorry this is the best copy I’ve got and I don’t have the original.)

When you say RPG what is the first thing you think of? Well for me it would have to be the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Of all the gaming genres, RPGs are my favorite and it was D&D that introduced me to it, back in the late 70’s. Even before video games came around I was rolling dice, fighting wizards and finding treasures with my friends. I’d buy whatever handbooks I could and was totally fascinated by the mechanics of the game. Traveling to strange new fictional worlds, gaining experience and special powers was quite fun - especially compared with the workaday schedules that most of us have. Playing D&D was a nice way to get away from the usual and enjoy an adventure with friends. Whether you were a rogue, cleric, wizard, fighter, bard or dungeon master you could always have a good time playing.

The popularity of D&D has grown since its inception and references to it are throughout popular culture. Over time it has become more socially acceptable to talk about it in public, but it still has a geeky air about it. Even though I’ve not played any D&D since the 80’s, I’m still a big fan of RPGs. Now whenever a new Final Fantasy video game comes out, I’ll buy it. I’m glad D&D came about and showed us the road to great adventure.

Be sure to arm yourself against the threat of magical dragons and get the full page version of this ad.

Now back in the mid 80’s I was a big Star Wars fan. I can’t recall when I first saw the original three movies, but I had it bad for the Star Wars action figures and the comics. I still have all of the stuff and enjoy looking at it from time to time. Here’s a comic ad from the 80’s for a bunch of Star Wars merchandise including comics, calendars, sketchbooks, buttons and t-shirts. They even gave you the option to get the iron-on transfers so you can make your own cool Star Wars tees. (We older folk did that sort of thing back then for some reason.)

It’s hard to believe we’re at the 30 year mark and Star Wars is as popular as it ever was. Although I’m a purist and enjoy the original untouched flicks, it’s good seeing kids still enjoying the story today.

The Jedi sized, full page version of this ad is right here, padawan. (And yes I still do the “Luke, I am your father” bit while speaking into a spinning fan.)

Before their summer blockbuster movie is just a memory, here’s another Fantastic Four classic ad. Not only did they clobber hunger, but this superhero bunch also had some chunky, fruit flavored gum. Mr Fantastic wants his strawberry flavor, the predecessor of Ms Alba as orange, a flaming brief-wearing Johnny loves his grape flavor and the Thing clobbers himself a watermelon. Even if there is a hundred chunks of funky flavored gum in every pack, there’s never enough grape flavor.

For the big bubble blowin’ version of this classic ad, click here.

What says summer better than Kool-Aid and playing video games? Starting in the early 1980’s, lucky kids could enjoy their fluorescent, powdered drink mix and play the game too. If you didn’t have the funds (or Kool-Aid points) to buy the Kool-Aid Man video game you’d ask your folks, but some entrepreneuring kids built Kool-Aid stands to earn a few bucks. Here are a few scans from my old Marvel comic entitled “The Adventures Of Kool-Aid Man”. They also include some great specs on how to make your very own Kool-Aid stand. If you were wondering, yes I do own this original issue #1 from 1983. Oh, yeah! Here’s more on issue #2.

Help Kool-Aid Man battle the Thirsties by clicking the thumbnails below!

It was the Christmas season of 1986 and people everywhere were starting to get into the Lazer Tag fad. You were inundated by commercials for the toys and on the Lazer Tag Academy TV show, they peddled a “perfect world”. Get your StarLyte and StarSensor ready to have some laser blasting fun! Will you be idolized in the future for having never been tagged out? It’s be decades since I played the game, but it’s still popular today.

Click on the thumbnails before you get zapped.

The famous Clark Bars with their simple, yet memorable packaging and tasty assortment of candy goodness. They’re all so rich, and so good, you may have trouble making up your mind. Clark Coconut Crunch, Clark Peanut Butter Log, Clark Crunchy Peanut Butter, Clark Zagnut, Clark Chocolate Mint and the famous Clark Bar. They’re an old time favorite, but it’s been a long time since I enjoyed one. Over time Zagnut went one way (acquired by Hershey’s) and the Clark Bar went another way (NECCO). I wonder if the other candy bars survived.

To see the much larger scanned copy of this classic ad, click here.

We last left our bendable buddies worrying about how to retrieve their hot air balloon, which was stuck atop a giant Gum Dinger Pop. While enjoying one of the many candy flavors, Gumby blows a Gum Dinger bubble and learns the art of bubble maneuvering. Then both heroes POP back into their hot air balloon and head for home. Upon their return, they brag to Prickle and Goo about all fanciful flavors of Gum Dinger Pops they saw. I hope you enjoyed this humdinger of an adventure.

To see the much larger scanned copy of this classic ad, click here.